


Try the Flounder

by reasonablyaloof



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Fish, Friendship, Gen, MLS, Portland Timbers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-12
Updated: 2013-12-12
Packaged: 2018-01-04 11:46:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1080644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reasonablyaloof/pseuds/reasonablyaloof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve arrives in Portland, but Darlington won't hang with him until he smells a little less like fish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Try the Flounder

It is raining in Portland when Steve pulls up in front of Darlington’s house in the January early dusk. Actually, it’s raining in the whole northern I-5 corridor, and he knows this because he’s just spent the past three hours living it. He thinks he’s alive anyway. He steps out of the car and opens an umbrella, more out of habit than anything. It doesn’t even really work at the best of times.

“Hey, hey!” says a familiar voice from inside, as the door swings open and he’s face-to-face with his friend. Then the wind picks up, blowing some rain inside, and Darlington freezes.

Darlington’s face has always been a work of art. Even when he is trying to shore up the air beneath his nostrils as efficiently as possible, he still manages to scrunch his features up in a way that’s – well, not exactly attractive, but possibly kind of adorable. Even with a crease roughly the size of the Grand Canyon between his eyes, he manages a look that would usually make Steve want to pinch his cheeks and coo.

“Long time no see, buddy!” Steve says with feeling, barely even blinking as he fumbles to take down his umbrella and sprays himself all over with rainwater. He’s too tired to give a shit anymore, but he is glad to see Darlington. He steps over the stoop, into the house. It’s warm and beautiful, decorated with care. Even downstairs, in the foyer, there are signs that an expecting couple live here. Water drips down his forehead and into his eyes as he spies a playpen already in what must be the family room. He would think that Darlington and Felicia are jumping the gun a little, but he knows how excited they are, how ready to raise the perfect family they have been since basically they day they met. It can’t be more obvious that they’re living their dream. It’s kind of disgustingly wonderful.

“Nice digs,” he says, grinning at Darlington. “You got a towel?”

His friend, however, his extremely responsible adult friend, is pressed into the corner of his own foyer, waving a hand exaggeratedly in front of his nose. As Steve looks on, incredulous, Darlington sneezes twice. Three times. “ _Dude_ ,” he says again. “you stink. What did you roll in? Were you poisoned? Is it contagious? Did you kidnap a skunk?”

“What the hell, D,” Steve says slowly, because _come on_. So maybe there had been a small accident on the way out of Seattle that he hadn’t had time to deal with. No need to be such a dick about it. He puts his umbrella in the stand and wiggles out of his raincoat. A strangled noise emerges from the corner. “Come on, man, it can’t be that bad.”

“Zaks, you know I love you, but you really do smell like the worst ass. Like, I want to catch up and everything but it’s really hard to open my mouth right now, man.”

Darlington does, in fact, have one hand covering his mouth and nose while he talks quickly, as if he needs to be subjected to the air as little as possible. Steve purses his lips. He really just wants to take off his wet clothes, sit down in the Nagbes’ probably stupid-comfortable living room, drink a beer or two, catch up, and play FIFA. Not that he’s given it any thought or anything.

“Chill, chill, okay. Guess I got used to it in the car. Can I use your shower, or do you want to bring my stuff in first?”

“If you don’t get in the shower within the next thirty seconds, I swear I will put you outside for a truly Portland welcome.” Darlington pauses, then clarifies. “In the rain. Naked, like a dog. I will hose you down if I have to.”

“It rains just as much in Seattle,” Steve grumbles without malice, pulling his sodden shoes and socks off as Darlington edges past him like the mature adult and future father Steve always knew he’d grow up to be.

“Anyway, how was the drive?” Darlington calls back once he’s sufficiently in front and apparently no longer oppressed in the nose.

“Wet,” Steve admits. “I had the windows down until Tacoma, for the smell, but you know what it’s like there. Then it started raining and my driver’s side window stuck. So it pissed on me the rest of the way.” Although at some point in the drive he must have arrived at a certain level of downtrodden acceptance, the memory of his horror at realizing the window was stuck is enough to make him shiver. And because he’s still cold, even in Casa Nagbe, the coziest semi-newlywed palace this side of the Cascades, he doesn’t stop. It’s been a long day, okay?

At the top of the stairs, he sees a light on through a doorway to his left. Darlington’s voice floats through it. “I’m just getting rid of Felicia’s stuff, then you’re all good to hop in. I’ll get you a towel in a sec.” Steve pads over to the door. It’s a roomy bathroom, with two sinks, a wall of solid mirror, and sparkling teal mosaic lining the shower. Darlington pauses, then looks at Steve with something warm in his eyes. He steps forward, hugs him quickly but firmly, then jumps backward, hands coming up immediately to cover his nose.

“Our bedroom’s just across the hall. You can borrow something of mine to wear until we bring your bags in.” He speed-walks down the hall, just slowly enough that he probably thinks he’s being subtle. He’s not at all, but Steve doesn’t care. He has never seen anything more beautiful than that shower. He strips quickly, leaving his clothes in a heap on the floor. The shower takes barely a moment to heat up, and he steps in, just standing there and absorbing the heat.

He doesn’t really register the knock on the door, or the fact that apparently it’s been opened, but then he hears Darlington saying clearly, “I brought you a towel. Don’t drown before you even meet the rest of the guys.”

The door snicks shut, just as Steve is about to say that he has met them, sort of, although his acquaintances haven’t exactly been friendly. Not yet. He knows they’ll come around. He is even willing to be friends with Diego Chara, provided his Spanish is up to snuff to get him that far.

He spends at least ten minutes just soaking, before he decides that he should really go downstairs and chill with his host. There’s no reason to hurry scrubbing, however, since D was so insistent that The Smell make itself scarce. Steve takes his time with what is probably Felicia’s fancy shower scrub and doesn’t feel bad about it at all.

When he turns off the water, finally, he finds a fluffy white towel neatly folded on the toilet seat next to him. His clothes are missing, and he stares, a little perplexed, before remembering D’s insistence that he borrow something. He towels his hair and upper body off a little, then opens the door.

The master bedroom is, as promised, right across the hall. Steve turns on the light and sees an immaculately decorated room, clean save for a small pile of clothes on the bed. These he grabs. They’re probably D’s pajamas, they’ve been dumped to one side just like he used to when they traveled for Akron. It’s a t-shirt and sweatpants, and neither fit him especially well – the shirt is particularly tight in the shoulders – but he doesn’t really care. He is fucking exhausted, and roughly five thousand percent ready for a beer.

It’s pretty easy to find Darlington downstairs. He’s watching some detective show and eating baby carrots from a leather armchair that looks sinfully comfortable. Steve slides around, and drops into a matching couch with a sigh. He drags his feet up off the floor and leans back gratefully.

Darlington looks up when he sits down, a smile tugging at his mouth. “So, uh,” he says, “rough day?”

“You don’t even know, D,” Steve groans, closing his eyes. He just enjoys the sofa for a moment. It is so very comfortable. Then, because Darlington had asked, roughly a hundred years ago, “I got out of the house okay, but had to pick up something in the city before I could leave. And I, er.” There’s no way to put this that isn’t one hundred percent humiliating. “I fell.”

Darlington is clearly trying not to laugh, but he doesn’t seem to quite get it either, because he just stares expectantly. Steve sighs.

“I was at Pike Place Market, right, with the fish? This lady, okay, she drops her basket, y'know, of fish, and I slip on it. So I fell, and I landed in, ah. Fish.”

“You did not.” Darlington says with an ungainly snort. His shoulders shake with suppressed amusement.

“Some of them exploded,” Steve adds, remembering unhappily. But Darlington is laughing like there’s no tomorrow, hanging off the side of his chair, and Steve can’t help it. He joins in, because there is no way to be insulted by Darlington’s amusement when he knows perfectly well how objectively slapstick it had all been. His feet had flown up in the air like he’d stepped on a cartoon banana peel, and there had been fish bits absolutely everywhere. As a matter of fact, he had to pick some stray pieces of skin off in the shower. He shares this information and Darlington howls.

Something uncurls inside him, and despite the potential weirdness of the upcoming season, the likely awkward adjustments he’ll have to make to being in Portland, he realizes he is profoundly glad to be here. He’s missed this, missed the easy camaraderie with his friend-cum-little brother. Hanging out when they play for different teams just isn’t the same. It’s still enjoyable, but there’s so much pressure to get everything out of the way at once and no grace period for oppressive fish smells.

When Darlington finally manages to breathe normally, he says, nonchalantly, “I’m gonna go put your clothes in the dryer. But listen, and this is definitely a compliment: maternity PJs are a really good look on you. You should take that to Milan or something.”

“What?” Steve squawks. He can’t have heard right.

“Earlier I said, wear something of mine, but you can totally rock that! I bet she’d let you keep them.” He thinks for a moment. “Maybe not the sweatpants. She really likes those ones, says they don’t hurt her cankles.”

Darlington cackles like a baby devil on his way out and Steve can only drop his face to his hands with a groan.

**Author's Note:**

> I suppose this is set in mid-December, a week or two after the Timbers acquired Zakuani? I don't know, I just wanted him to somehow wind up in Felicia's pregnant pajamas, and their baby is apparently due on New Year's.
> 
> This is un-beta'd, therefore any errors are mine.


End file.
